Nazim al haqqani on the bridge to eternity bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim on the bridge to

(5) REAL LIFE COMES FROM DIVINE LOVE
1) S.O.S.- SAVE OUR SOULS!
All souls are calling S.O.S.- Save our Souls! They feel as if they are in Hell. All mankind is in need of spiritual food. It makes their faces bright and their hearts full of light, peace comes to their minds, and their spirits open towards the Heavens. Contentment is dressed on their physical beings.

Sufi Ways are spiritual ways, the ways to the Heavens. If you like, you may follow them, so that your soul is in Paradise before you die. Then dying will only be like a change from one place to another, so easy- opening a door and being welcomed.

2) The soul’s food is Divine Light
The Prophets brought Divine Lights for our souls, which go through the hearts of people. Souls can only be fed by Nur, Divine Lights. There is no need for eating and drinking; their food is Lights. Everyone's soul is in need of Light. If they are not asking for Light today, they will ask for it tomorrow, or next month, next year or on their last day in Dunya. This is important: Souls are thirsty for the stream of Divine Lights. If there are no Lights, there is no Love. If Allah's Beauty Oceans can't be seen, no Love comes to His servants. Souls know that, and therefore they are asking for those Divine Lights. Through them, those Oceans become visible, and souls should be satisfied.
3) Love is Life and Light
Try to give more time every day to prayers and Dhikr. Angels glorify their Lord without tiring- it is their food. So the power of one angel is more than the power of all mankind. It is a special power...spiritual people, Prophets and Saints, have it...

Glorifying the Lord gives you energy and peace, more power and support, and more love for Allah. Real life comes from that Divine Love. When there is no Love, there is no life. The Awliya say that whoever doesn't have that Love is like a dead body walking on earth. Love is life and light, and the more we have of it, the more our life will be complete and full of pleasure.

4) The Power of Divine Love
“In their inner life, people are in need, and with their souls they are in contact with my soul, so they come to me. I am doing nothing with my followers. I am only sending Divine Power to them without their knowing, which works through their personalities without harming them. The benefit of a Master is that he takes away bad characteristics in order to give good attributes to people. It needs a gardener to look after fruit trees and make them perfect.

Masters give perfection to Murids. To be like the Master is the perfection of a Murid. As much as you imitate your Master, following him step by step, you are going to be on the same level, but you are an imitation of him. I am making Murids follow me through their hearts, with love. I am not using force, but the power of Love.”

5) The heart is for Allah alone

Allah Almighty asks of His servants to worship with Ikhlas, sincerity, purity. He asks for pure worship, which means to have a pure heart, a heart that has nothing in it but its Lord.

Each of us knows which side of himself is not true, or which of his characters is not good. We must strive to have pure hearts. That is ‘Jihad’; to fight with one’s bad characters and change them into good ones.

Everything that occupies your heart and keeps you from your Lord makes your heart impure. You must try to keep everything away from your heart, but Allah. We say that the heart is for Allah alone. Man is created for the love of Allah Almighty. Any time you put your love in this dunya, it will be wasted. But if you put your love with Allah, with the Prophet, with your Sheikh, or with your fellow Mu’mins, you may find that love here and hereafter; it is never going to be wasted. Love is the most precious, most valuable, most expensive thing, that the Sons of Adam have been given.
(6) ‘JIHAD-UL-AKBAR’ - THE BIGGEST FIGHT
1) The base of Faith
The base upon which faith is built, the spirit of faith(Ruh ul Iman) is to carry everything that you don’t like, and to be patient with those you don’t like. For as many people as there are on this earth, such is the number of different characters and abilities, and you must carry them all. Whenever you are carrying other people, you get more power, more strength for your faith. The real power of faith is to remain unchanged in the face of trials.

In our times, the sign of a good character, and the highest degree of Jihad-ul-Akbar, is to carry other people’s bad characters and to tolerate them.

We have not been ordered to refuse people, but to make them more pleased. We are living in a time when people may say anything and everything; you must be patient with them, and excuse them, always without fighting. You must know that people are ill with their egos. If you are claiming to be doctors, you must excuse them. If you are on the way of Prophets, you must help them and be tolerant of them. This is the highest degree of good manners.

You must not forget a goodness that has been done to you. If someone does a goodness for you, and afterwards you become displeased with that person over something he said or did, your displeasure, your forgetfulness of that person’s good deed toward you is from bad character. You will be like a cat. You may give it meat one hundred times; but if you leave it just once, that cat will make objections and complaints to Allah, saying:”He left me hungry!”

It is good manners not to argue with people, even if you know that you are in the right. Arguing extinguishes the faith.
Who is a real Muslim? One who doesn’t harm anyone, either with his hands or with his tongue. People are safe from him. This is a wide entrance to Islam, and it is for all people.

2) The 6th Pillar of Faith

Whenever something is wrong in a person, everything around him appears wrong to him. When he is all right within himself, the world appears all right to him. The world is created perfectly by our Creator. If something appears wrong to you, you must ask yourself: “What is wrong in me that I see this as wrong? Oh my nafs, you are wrong!”

This is the highest degree of faith, and the highest degree of belief in the goodness of the Creator. Allah is not creating anything wrong or imperfect. At the essence of everything, if we could but see it, there is perfection. Until we behave correctly with our Lord, it is impossible for our actions, our family, our neighbours to behave correctly with us. It is impossible to find a better situation than that which exists today, for those who are ready. You cannot wish for things to be as they used to be, nor for the way that they might be. The conditions that we are in now are perfect, most suitable for us. Allah Almighty is giving as much of His mercy as we need; as much as we are able to carry.

Real faith is like that: to believe that all actions, whether from goodness, or from badness, are from Allah Almighty. If we believe this, we must be patient with each other’s actions. Allah is trying our faith, each of us with others.

The Prophet sws said: “People will deal with you according to your actions.” If you are good and someone intends you harm, Allah will defend you. You must be honourable to all, good, respectful, merciful, generous and think well of all. We must be patient with all people because we believe that no one comes to us without our Lord’s Will. Therefore, there is no enmity in Islam. We have been ordered to do goodness. Anyone can return goodness for goodness; but only a few people can return goodness for badness.

3) “Oh my Lord, I am in need of Your Mercy!”

A real servant to his Lord knows that all the goodness that he has is a mercy from his Lord, guiding him to his Lord’s way. He knows that but for his Lord’s mercy, he wouldn’t be praying, fasting, making Dhikr, and so forth. So, when he comes to his Lord’s Presence, he says: “Oh my Lord, I am standing in Your Divine Presence, and my hands are empty. I am in need of Your Mercy always. Give me more mercy, oh my Lord.”
A real servant of the Lord is not asking anything from Him. He says only: “May you be pleased with me, oh my Lord.”

Some Awliya are too ashamed to ask anything from their Lord, because they see that they are in endless need of Him. They say: “Oh my Lord, You know best what I need from Your Mercy. My needs are endless. Fulfill my needs, oh my Lord, as You know.”

4) The Station of Contentment- How to control anger
Who is the happiest person in this life? Who is the most satisfied? He who is satisfied with that station in life in which his Lord put him. It is the station of contentment- to look at everything and see that it is most suitable for him, and also for all. You must say: “This situation is most suitable for me because my Lord put me in this situation. It it were no good for me, He wouldn’t have put me in it.” We must believe that Allah Almighty desires goodness for us, always.

Don’t be a teacher to Allah. He knows best, and you don’t know anything. Don’t make any objections for anything; you are servants, you are slaves to Him, and He is Governor, Absolute King of the Universe.

You must know that all actions, all events, are not going to happen as we like them to happen. Nothing happens, no one can be as we like them to be; it is impossible. When you know this, you may keep yourself far away from anger, because anger is the result of thinking that you can have everything as you want it to be.

5) “With pleasure, oh my Lord!”

If a man is going to do anything, worship, or any other action, it must be done voluntarily and gladly. If he is not pleased with that action, he must not do it, for there will be no good result for him from it. If there is no pleasure in it for you, there will be no pleasure in it for Allah Almighty. For worship, it is important to realize that we are speaking of the soul’s pleasure. When we are worshipping, our nafs is not pleased, but our souls are. We must look to the pleasure of our soul.

Actions may be easy or difficult. What is the secret? For the one who finds an action easy, it is because it gives him pleasure, while for the one who finds it difficult, it is because he is forced to do it. Easy actions make people happier, while difficult actions make people unhappy.

6) There is no ‘empty time’
Everything that is going to happen in this life has a fixed time. Every event has an appointed hour. If we know that all events will come in their appointed time, we will be at rest, patient; and patience shows the perfection of man, a strong faith.

If we can take wisdom from every event, then we will be strong in faith. We will get more power to receive Divine Knowledge. Allah orders us to look deeply into each thing, into each event, to find a secret wisdom that gives it value. If you look deeply, you will taste.

Everything must be in its time. You cannot put it out of its time, because every momet is occupied. You cannot find time that is ‘empty’. Therefore, in our Tariqat, there is no delaying actions. Actions must be done in their times. As Allah Almighty says: “For prayer there is a special time and order.” This is a sign for us. Asking us to delay our actions comes from the nafs. Our nafs is very lazy; it doesn’t like to move, and therefore it wishes to delay every- thing. To our nafs, it seems easy to say: “I shall do it tomorrow.” It is always looking for an escape from serious actions; it only likes to play.
(7) THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A SERVANT OF ALLAH
1) ‘Tauba’- Repentance
‘Tawba’, Repentance, means not to listen to one’s four enemies- the nafs(ego), hawa(vain desires), dunya and shaitan. Man may agree with his Lord or with his four enemies. If a man is asking to return to his Lord, he must be in rebellion against those four enemies, and not listen to their orders.

2) How to be acceptable in the Divine Presence

Our Grandsheikh described how a Derwish may be acceptable as a servant to Allah Almighty. “He must have one character from each of three animals,” he said. ”From the donkey, he must be able to carry burdens with patience and without objection. Unless he can do this he will be unsuccessful, because without patience one cannot carry the responsibilities of life.

From the dog, he must learn faithfulness to his master. If the master tells the dog to stay somewhere until he returns, that dog will stay, even until death. If the owner beats it and chases it away, the dog will still return, with its tail wagging, when its master calls.

Finally, when a man looks at a pig, he must know that his nafs is dirtier and filthier than a pig. The dirt of pigs is external, it comes from eating dirty things. But the nafs is dirty inside. Its dirt comes from fighting with its Lord. A perfect man must have such a character that he will accept whatever dirt is thrown on him, whether by words or by actions, knowing that his nafs is dirtier.”

These three characteristics give a man rest and satisfaction in his heart. Only in this way can he reach happiness in this life. These are the characteristics of Prophets and Saints...

3) The 12 good characters in dogs
Our Grandsheikh said:

“There are 12 good characters in dogs that you may also find in Prophets and Awliya. They are:

Not forgetting goodness: they don’t forget those who have done goodness to them. They are patient and always grateful for everything that they are given.

They are not angry with their owners, even if they are beaten and sent away. If their owners call, they return with their tails wagging.

They are humble; obedient; truthful; trustworthy, good friends; loyal, always remaining with their owners and never turning traitor.

They are satisfied with small things; they are ‘zahid’, not looking to anything from this dunya. They have nothing from this world, they have no place for themselves. They may sleep anywhere, and if someone throws stones at them, they quickly get up and go somewhere else.

They are very light sleepers, they don’t sleep too much, and quickly awaken.

If a man has those attributes, he is a Wali. Those 12 attributes belong to Prophets and Saints.

4) Allah tries His servants
Allah Almighty tries His servants to see if they are patient. We must remember this so that when an event comes to test our patience we will remain firm. We must keep ‘patience at the first blow ’, we must keep our faith, then our power will grow and the power of our enemies will decrease. Our real enemy is our own ego. In the great war against our ego, ‘Jihad’, the angry man will lose and the patient man gains.

5) “Will you be patient?”

Patience is fighting all that the nafs likes. There are three types of patience:

Patience with physical discomforts, such as getting up on cold mornings for prayer, having cold water for washing, waiting in line, being uncomfortable during illness, completing difficult tasks, and so forth. To remain patient and steadfast in your worship in spite of these difficulties is very valuable in the sight of Allah.

Even more valuable is the patience to refrain from forbidden things. A Hadith says: “To live as a servant and to keep away from forbidden things is more valuable than the worship of all the angels, men and jinn throughout the ages.”

The third type of patience is the best of all. It is to be patient with the people who trouble you. The Holy Quran says: “We are trying some of you with others of you.”

Patience is the most necessary thing in the life of man. If you have patience, all goodness is with you. Allah’s Eyes are on you...will you be patient?

6) The sign of spiritual health

People with good characters are healthy in their spiritual lives. From the amount of a person’s complains you may know how much bad characteristics there are that are left with him. When you finish all your complaining, you may know that you are healthy. No more bad character.

This is important, because a person with a good character, if he has no complaint, has patience; and that means he has real faith. When you can escape the pull of your bad characteristics, there are no troubles for you either, wether in this life or in the life hereafter. You must remember that this is going according to your Lord’s Will. This is the key, the medicine for that illness. You must say: “Why I am complaining, when Allah Almighty has ordered this to be?” When you remember this, you will be satisfied with His Will and agree with it.

7) The secret Kafir
If a man is not aware that Allah’s Eyes are on him everywhere, all the time, that man is not a Mu’min, believer. You must imagine, in your heart, that Allah’s Eyes are with you. If you forget this, you will be absent from your Lord, and present with your ego. The best actions come by keeping this in your mind.
If a man is doing an action that is not pleasing to Allah, His Prophet or Awliya, it means that he is considered a ‘secret Kafir’, a secret unbeliever. We have been ordered to clean ourselves of both evident and secret kufr. Therefore you must be careful about your openly visible acts as well as your secret acts. You must keep a balance with you with which to weigh your actions. You must look at each action that you do, or are about to do, and make sure that it will be pleasing to Allah, His Prophet and the Awliya. When you know that that action will bring pleasure to your Lord, the Prophet and the Awliya, you may do it. If not, you must leave it.

If a man balances his actions in this life, there will be no balancing for him on Judgement Day. Therefore the Prophet said: “It is more lovely to Allah if a man sits for an hour thinking and weighing of his actions, than if he prays for 7o years!” This is because you may erase your 7o years of worship with an act that Allah is not pleased with; but if you weigh of that action first, with your mind, you may be able to leave it, and escape its harm.

8) ‘Malayani’- That which doesn’t concern you

‘Malayani’ means, ‘that which doesn’t concern you’. You must not speak of or act on that which doesn’t concern you. If a man takes care of his speech, keeping his tongue, Allah Almighty gives Divine Wisdom to his tongue so that he speaks only truth and righteousness. To speak of that which doesn’t concern you makes your Iman weak. When you leave this bad habit, your faith becomes stronger. You cannot know what concerns you or not, save through your inspirations. Then you may know very well what is yours or not

9) Are we building or destroying?

The spirit of all acts of worship consists of three points: To keep your tongue from all prohibited speaking, speaking only good words, not bad.

To keep your eyes from looking at prohibited things, dirty places, and actions.

To keep all your organs from prohibited actions; listening, walking, touching, thinking bad things, having bad intentions. Without keeping your eyes, your tongues, and your organs from what is prohibited, you cannot take any benefit from your good actions. Like when you are planting something, you must keep it safe and protect it from harm. We must know what we are doing. Are we building or destroying? Every prohibited action destroys our building, destroys our physical and spiritual bodies.

10) First fight your own self

To be is able to put one’s organs under one’s will is the mark of a real servant of Allah. If a man can’t do this, he is the servant of his ego, nafs. You must be able to advise yourself, before you may advise others. If your Self accepts being under your command, then other people may accept being under your command. This is the way of Prophets and Awliya. First they fight themselves, and then they look after other people. When they speak, their words have an effect upon those who listen. And if a person listens, it is impossible for him not to take benefit from the words of a Prophet or a Saint. He may take power to control his nafs and go on the right way.

It is not enough to say, “I am Muslim”, and to say the Shahada. You must try to keep your organs far from all actions that are not Muslim, far from ‘Haram’, forbidden things.

(8) THE BOND OF DIVINE LOVE
1) Levels of love
The Lord is One. He created all of us and planted His Divine Love in the very yeast of our being. You must know that, although that love may be temporarily covered, it is running through our hearts as a river runs to an ocean. It may manifest only as temporary human love, it may even seem to disappear completely, like a river that flows under a mountain, only to re-emerge on the other side. But there can be no doubt that our Lord has placed in every heart a current that flows irrisistably to His Love Oceans in the Divine Presence. Allah says: “Oh My servants, as I have given you of My Divine Love, so have I given it to all creation; so spread your love to everyone, that you may be in harmony with My will."

To perceive the beauty in all creation you must transcend outward forms and shapes and pass to meanings, eternal spiritual realities, as forms are limited and limiting, whereas spiritual realities are Oceans, endless Oceans of Contentment. To arrive at those Oceans will bring you inner peace.

There are levels of love along the way. Their quality is different, according to their nearness to the goal, the Absolute Love Oceans of our Lord. When one has reached that goal he may take any amount of harm from others and still love. He may say: "I love you for the sake of my Lord, not for any other reason. That love will never change or diminish, as no matter what you do your Lord's love is with you, and therefore I love you, too."

We are trying to reach that point, but it is difficult. We are tested, and that is an opportunity for us to advance. Holy people have advised us that rather than avoiding all ill-mannered and badly educated people, we should mix with them and establish contact with them, that they may benefit and that we may test ourselves and gain thereby.

The Holy Masters have promised me that whoever sits with me and listens with his heart full of love, being receptive to Divine Love, must come to the same level: their hearts must open to Divine Love. The Masters are not going to abandon us, and we are not going to turn from them, as our hearts have been bound with the strongest bond: the bond of Divine Love, that strongest relationship that exists between the Creator and His creatures.

If the love that is with me was only transitory love, you wouldn't sit with me for even one moment. But the love that is with me is real, permanent and Divine; and I extend rays of it to your hearts in my association to awaken permanent love in you. This is a love that will blossom in your hearts. I am asking permission from my Lord to spread His permanent Divine Love to the hearts of all people. The time is approaching when we hope that permission will be granted.

2 ) "Ya Wadud..." - The Fountain of Divine Love
All creatures appeared through Allah's Divine Love. He loved them and they appeared; therefore everything in existence carries its share of Divine Love in it. The electrons of atoms turn around the nuclei with the speed of light, because they are alive with the Divine Love Power that their Lord has granted them.

It is Allah who, through His Holy Name 'Ya Wadud', the All-Loving, gives His Divine Love to everything in the Universe. Those electrons spin at such high speed around the nuclei because they are drunk with Divine Love. That is how the influence of that Love is manifested by them. Through the Divine Name, 'Al Wadud', real, never-changing, permanent love is granted to us by the Lord. When we say 'Ya Wadud', we are opening ourselves up to that Divine Love, asking our Lord to awaken that unlimited and eternal love. I have been ordered to teach and advise people to call on our Lord, saying: "Ya Wadud", as this will enable the sincere to attain real love of their Lord Allah Almighty and to love everything around themselves for the sake of the Creator who loves all of His creation.

This love is the essence of all success in the way of spiritual purification. To realize that love, to come into contact with the Divine Love Oceans, is the challenge and fulfillment of human existence. We seek to awaken permanent love. Practices, prayers and rules are of no use in our time without that love, because the ego easily attaches itself to practices and uses them, so that they serve our vanity.

Everyone has a circle of friends, relations, acquaintances. Starting from those closest to us, our wives or husbands, parents and children, brothers and sisters, we must be generous in giving of our permanent love, making peace with them. Giving of our permanent love is the most important practice for our time. The lower self of man, the selfish ego, never wants to give permanent love to anyone exept himself. But Man has been created to love all creation, as he represents his Lord on Earth and has the greatest reservoir of Divine Love with him. He can be a great means of expression for that Divine Love in this world, a fountain of love that every creature may drink from.